Whether in business or your personal life…

…choosing the right partner is essential.

ATTRACT Opportunities Instead of Pursuing Them…

…Using Counter-Intuitive Thinking

Gaining an Eclectic Education, Step 6 of the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE, can apply to any activity in which we’re engaged.  Phone conversations with two very talented women prove my point.

During both conversations the topic shifted to opportunities they’d had to partner with others in their field.  Both of these women had repeatedly declined these offers for one very simple reason, the people approaching them didn’t have the breadth and depth of experience they had.

As one of these women so eloquently stated “If one person is strong and the other weak, the weaker partner will benefit immensely from the association while the stronger partner eventually becomes disgruntled over the inequity of the exchange.”  There are other negative outcomes that could occur as well:

• The stronger partner may feel that she is being held back by the weaker partner.
• The weaker partner may feel pressured to take action that she feels ill-equipped to handle.
• The weaker partner may feel that she’s doing all the grunt work while the stronger partner enjoys all the fun work.

The list is endless.

It’s counter-intuitive, but good potential partners are those who are enjoying similar levels of success on their own. Combine that success with similar values, similar dreams and overlapping, yet distinctive capabilities and odds are good that the two of you will enjoy even greater success as partners.

If you want to distinguish yourself, become a person who learns something new in all activities in which your engaged.  Then share what you’ve learned with others.  This ability will make you INVALUABLE to those around you and, in the process, attract opportunities so that you don’t have to pursue them.

Attracting opportunities is only the beginning.  Visit www.pricingforprofitbook.com to discover how to get compensated well for the value you provide or check out my latest book, Pricing for Profit.  Enjoy!

Our natural tendency is to grow our operations.

Is it possible that we should be shrinking them?

ATTRACT Opportunities Instead of Pursuing Them…

…Using Counter-Intuitive Thinking

Our natural tendency is to grow our existing operations.  We operate under the notion that what has worked for us in the past is the best approach for the future.  Often what we’ll discover is that while what we’ve been doing may have worked, it may not have worked well.  Here’s an example.

Mr. Eggett cites a candy manufacturer who discovered that his real strength was in creating new candies, not in producing them.  The candy manufacturer outsourced the production, sold his production facilities and aligned himself with a food distributor that needed a candy product.  The result? He grew his regional company to a national brand while shrinking his company’s operations.

It’s counter-intuitive, but when considering growth for the future take a look at:

• What your company does better than anyone else.
• What you have the most fun doing.
• Which aspects of your operation consistently disappoint your customers.
• Which areas of the operation give you the most headaches from an operational standpoint.
• Which companies excel at the things your company struggles with;  Mr. Eggett suggests that it could be a competitor who could become an ally.
• Which companies have a gap in their offerings that you can fill with your expertise.

Bring ideas like this to the table vis-a-vis your eclectic education and you’ll have others regularly seeking your counsel, inviting you onto their teams and involving you in their initiatives.  It’s another way to become INVALUABLE.

Attracting opportunities is only the beginning.  Visit www.pricingforprofitbook.com to discover how to get compensated well for the value you provide.  Enjoy!

If you’d like to receive a weekly email reminder with a link to The Invaluable Leader blog, please enter your email address and name in the left sidebar.  You’ll also get a free copy of Step 1 of the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE.   If you’d like me to address specific topics, please send me an email at dale@furtwengler.com.  Please share your experience with our readers by posting a comment.

Recently I wrote about fear and the use of a contrarian mindset as a way to prevent personal fears from becoming societal fears and eventually triggering violent acts. In order to be able to become the voice of reason, we must be able to conquer our own fears. Easier said than done?

Chapter 23 of the Chandogya Upanisad says “Where one does not see another, does not hear another, does not know another, that is abundance. Where one sees another, hears another, knows another, that is smallness. Abundance is immortal: smallness is mortal.”

What does this quote have to do with fear and our need to conquer it? Fear is egocentric. Whether I’m afraid of losing power, influence, customers, a valued employee or vendor, the love of my life, a child or financial stability, I’m focused on my needs. That bespeaks smallness on my part. All that I’m concerned with are my needs, my wants, my desires. With that mindset, virtually anyone I see, hear or know poses a threat. I’m going to examine everyone – even those I love – to discern whether they’re a potential rival for what I desire or what I fear I might lose.

Let’s contrast that mindset with the earlier portion of the upanisad – “Where one does not see another, does not hear another, does not know another, that is abundance.” When I’m free from fear what I see are possibilities, not just for myself but for others as well. There is no me versus them; no zero sum game where one person must lose for the other to win. There is plenty of power, influence, love and financial wealth for all to enjoy. I don’t create opportunities just for me; I just create opportunities. I understand that the more opportunities I create the better off we’ll all be.

When I create abundance for others, abundance is assured for me as well. That’s one of the messages of this upanisad!

It’s natural for us, as human beings, to experience scarcity, fear and smallness from time to time. I wish that I could tell you that I’m exempt, but I suffer the same human frailties everyone does. I have, however, found ways to overcome these natural tendencies.

It’s counter-intuitive, but we can train our minds to quickly recognize when we’re feeling scarcity, fear and smallness. With that realization comes a choice, “Do I continue to focus on myself and perpetuate the fear I’m feeling? Or do I choose to begin exploring possibilities for a new, bright future for all of us?” The choice becomes easier over time.

It won’t take long for you to get a sense for how much fun it is to be able to create possibilities at will. Soon your mind will quickly make the shift from the smallness of fear to the largesse of abundance. That’s when you’ll know you’ve conquered fear; that’s when you life will seem fuller and richer even in challenging times. This is my wish for you – a sense of abundance drawn from the abyss of scarcity. Enjoy your freedom from fear!

The 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE program is designed to help you see more effective ways of doing business – ways that dramatically improve your bottom line while making your life easier. In today’s blog I used Step 6, Eclectic Education, to gain new perspectives from the upanisads, spiritual teachings pre-dating most organized religions, regarding the difference between the immortal and mortal aspects of our nature. I also used Step 4, See Similarities, to apply these concepts to the fear each of us experiences by virtue of our humanity. Finally, I hinted at Step 3, Suspend Judgment, when I spoke of “challenging times.” After all, times are challenging only if we decide to judge them to be so. For more information on the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE visit www.furtwengler.com/7steps.htm.

If you’d like to receive a weekly email reminder with a link to The Invaluable Leader blog or if you’d like me to address specific topics, please send me an email at dale@furtwengler.com. Please share your experience with our readers by posting a comment.

For ideas on how to apply counter-intuitive thinking to your company’s pricing strategy, visit my new Pricing for Profit blog at www.pricingforprofitbook.com/. Enjoy!

Good news – My latest book, Pricing for Profit, was released 9.9.09 in the United States, Canada, U.K., Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands.  It’s available in all the major bookstores – Borders.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!